Blizzard announces a May 15th release date for Diablo III, saying this is when the action/RPG sequel will be available at retail in many territories, and digitally in others. They have kicked off presales of the game on this page, offering the game in either form, as well as in a USD $99.99 alabaster-white retail Collector's Edition. They also offer a reminder that a free copy of the game is to be had for those who sign up for a World of Warcraft annual pass. Here's word:

In Diablo III, players take on the role of one of five heroic characters -- barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk, or demon hunter -- and engage in pulse-pounding combat with endless legions of evil. As they undertake an epic quest to rid Sanctuary from the corrupting forces of the Burning Hells, players will explore diverse and perilous settings, grow in experience and ability, acquire artifacts of incredible power, and meet key characters who’ll join them in battle or aid them in other ways.

Diablo III was built from the ground up to leverage the full functionality of the Battle.net platform, which delivers powerful matchmaking and communication tools, allowing adventurers to seamlessly join forces for exciting cooperative play. Battle.net also provides a secure infrastructure for the Diablo III auction house, a feature-rich marketplace that Sanctuary’s heroes can use to trade their hard-earned treasures. Players will be able to buy and sell weapons, armor, and other valuable items in the auction house in exchange for in-game gold. Players will also have the option to receive real-world currency for auction house sales, which they can apply to their Battle.net Balance for the purchase of a variety of digital products through Battle.net, including Diablo III auction house items, or cash out through a third-party payment service such as PayPal™ in most regions. Further details related to the auction house will be announced in the coming weeks.

Prez wrote on Mar 15, 2012, 17:20:I'll admit ignorance here because I never played Diablo online. But let's look at Dungeon Defenders, which in some ways is very similar to Diablo. They have an online single-player and an offline single-player. You can mod, cheat, use trainers, etc to your heart's content in the "Open" mode (offline single-player and coop). But if you want to have your stats tracked, and want to play in sanctioned tournaments and events, coop or singleplayer, you need a completely separate set of characters and equipment, and as far as I've seen this works perfectly. I certainly won't accept that a cash-strapped indie with a fraction of the talent and resources of a mega-studio like Blizzard is capable of pulling off what Blizzard can't. Eliminating "They can't do it", which seems logical to do, leaves "They refuse to do it", which I find irksome to say the least.

I know this is a bit of a late reply, but I found it interesting you referenced Dungeon Defenders. Last time I played that game (several months ago) it was just as easy to hack in one mode as the other. All the relevant data was easily found unencrypted in RAM on the local machine.